Emancipation and Reconstruction

At the end of the war, after years of fighting, America began to rebuild itself. The messy and often terrible process of putting back together a nation that had been torn apart left openings for brutality as people tried to find their place in the new world that awaited them. In these selections you will find stories of the people who put the pieces back together, and the way their legacies affect us still today.

TITLES

Raising Freedom’s Child: Black Children and Visions of the Future After Slavery by Mary Niall Mitchell
This book explores how the image of a black child born into freedom was used as a national symbol for Emancipation—by people with both good and bad intentions.

After the Glory: The Struggles of Black Civil War Veterans by Donald R. Shaffer
Many black veterans developed a sense of manliness while soldiers in the Union Army. This book outlines their quest for equality and dignity after the war.

My Confederate Kinfolk: A Twenty-First Century Freedwoman Discovers Her Roots by Thulani Davis
Davis uncovers the complex history of two families—one black, one white—which came together through a relationship between a former slave and a white plantation owner in the early years after the Civil War, eventually leading to her birth.

Splendid Failure: Postwar Reconstruction in the American South by Michael W. Fitzgerald
After the Civil War the Southern Radical Republicans fought for racial justice. This book shows how their efforts were praised at first, but soon began to alienate their countrymen in both the North and South, eventually leading to the lack of voting and civil rights for African Americans.

The Bloody Shirt: Terror After Appomattox by Stephen Budiansky
Following the Civil War more than three thousand African Americans and their white allies were killed by Southern terrorists intent on keeping them from living as free people. Author Budiansky follows the stories of five men who bravely fought against the violence.

My Face is Black is True: Callie House and the Struggle for Ex-Slave Reparations by Mary Frances Berry
The long-forgotten history of Callie House and her call for ex-slave reparations is the story of an early grass-roots African American justice movement.

Forever Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction by Eric Foner
African Americans are often relegated to the sidelines as passive players in the history of the Civil War era. Author Foner overturns this view and shows how African Americans’ active participation ended slavery, shaped Reconstruction, and built networks to take advantage of voting and educational rights.

A Stronger Kinship: One Town’s Extraordinary Story of Hope and Faith by Anna-Lisa Cox
The remarkable story of nineteenth century Covert, Michigan—a small town where blacks and whites lived together as equals in an integrated society, despite the racism that surrounded them.

Black West by William Loren Katz
Black cowboys, Buffalo Soldiers, and African American pioneer families are brought to life through stories and photographs in this lively history of life out West.

* Light, entertaining books for both adult and teen readers.